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By Rachel Masen-Satterfield
A CARMA graduate attended the Retired Racehorse Project’s Thoroughbred Makeover at Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, Kentucky for the 3rd year in a row. Last year CARMA was represented by Intaxication, a horse taken in by Aftercare Partner Neigh Savers Foundation and two years ago by Oso Smart through the same organization. This year CARMA was represented by a Neigh Savers horse again, but this time it was Sassy Ashley.
Sassy Ashley is a gorgeous, very well bred mare who raced 15 times in Southern California and was taken into CARMA last fall after escaping the fire at San Luis Rey. After Neigh Savers acquired her as an RRP prospect in February, she was sent to trainer Kalley Krickeberg (who then quickly adopted her from Neigh Savers). Kalley had 7 months with Ashley to retrain her for both Ranch Work and Polo to compete in Kentucky.
We felt going in Ashley had a good shot to place in her classes and perhaps make it to finale. Sadly the intense environment of the indoor arena set her off a bit and she didn’t quite get to show off her best self in Polo, but still tied for 7th with 4 other horses and walked away with a 9th place ribbon (which is a first for a CARMA horse).
In Ranch Work Ashley placed 15th out of 55 horses in an excellent showing. A couple of spooks in the obstacle portion bumped her out of the ribbons, but she had a very solid ride in that discipline.
This year had more horses show at the event than ever before and some really top quality talent (both trainer and horse). The Eventing winner Reloaded (trained by Elisa Wallace) won America’s Most Wanted Thoroughbred. This event continues to grow and expand to increase the demand for OTTBs each year and we are thrilled to have been represented again by another CARMA horse this year!